The Sin of Not Worshiping God in Your Family

“If you do not worship God in your family, you are living in positive sin; you may be quite sure you do not care for the souls of your family. If you neglect to spread a meal for your children to eat, would it not be said that you did not care for their bodies? And if you do not lead your children and servants to the green pastures of God’s Word, and to seek the living water, how plain is it that you do not care for their souls!

Do it regularly, morning and evening. It is more needful than your daily food, more needful than your work. How vain and silly all your excuses will appear, when you look back from Hell! Do it fully. Some clip off the psalm, and some the reading of the Word; and so the worship of God is reduced to a mockery. Do it in a spiritual, lively manner, go to it as to a well of salvation.”
- Robert Murray M’Cheyne

The Sin of Not Worshiping God in Your Family

The Heart of Family Reformation

Author: Jim Elliff

Our family begins the day with the hymn we are currently memorizing. When Laura was five, she sang for all of us the second verse of "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord" by the Yale president of the late 1700s, Timothy Dwight. With a determined look, she sang out,

I love Thy church, O God.
Her walls before Thee stand.
Dear as the apple of Thine eye,
And gravy on Thy hand.

My boys collapsed on the floor with laughter. The word is "graven!"

The kids were telling me just this evening how special our morning worship is. They value it, not only because it is sometimes humorous, but because it is the glue that holds us together, the stimulus for some our best discussions, and the real strength of our lives—its the heart, in fact, of our family reformation.

The Puritans, long misunderstood, had an exceptional view of the family. We can learn from them even though we might not accept all they had to say. They often talked of the home as the "little church," and the father as the pastor of his little flock. Lewis Bayly said, "What the preacher is in the pulpit, the same the Christian householder is in his house." Family worship is the natural outcome of such a view.

The practice of family worship (with or without children at home) is as forgotten to the church today as the dust in our attic, but this simple and effective method of restoring family spirituality is the most potent tool we have available to us—and every one of us can do it!
WHY IS FAMILY WORSHIP CRITICAL?

First, family worship is critical because the placing of the Word of God in the hearts of our family members is indispensable to their conversion.

Paul reminded Timothy that, “From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3: 15).

Peter said that we are "born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the Word of God which lives and abides forever" (1 Pet. 1:23). This incorruptible seed of saving life (corresponding to the natural biological seed) is inseminated in the dead soul via the Word of God alone.

The Puritans believed this with a passion. This was the rationale for their long sermons, the catechizing of children, the morning messages in those cold church buildings prior to the work day, the daily meditating on the Word in private, and especially the practice of family worship. For the Puritan, family worship took place two times a day, as the "morning and evening sacrifice." It was through this means that his children and wife, and any other guests or helpers in the home, would receive life!

Richard Baxter, one of the most famous of the Puritans, saw his village of Kidderminster, England transformed through this method. He stated:

I do verily believe that if parents did their duty as they ought, the Word publicly preached would not be the ordinary means of regeneration in the church, but only without the church, among practical heathens and infidels.

Second, it is critical because the Word alone enables your family to withstand the prevailing currents of an evil culture.

In the 2 Timothy 3 passage we find a torrent of base culture descending on young Timothy. "…In the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers… disobedient to parents…without self control… headstrong…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God"(vss.1-4).

How will you be able to rescue your family from the effects of such a culture? Only through the Word of God, according to Paul. The Word makes Timothy as the "man of God," "thoroughly equipped for every good work" necessary to strengthen the church. His tool box is complete and "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (vs. 16) so that the people under his charge can withstand the flood of culture described in the previous verses.

In the same way, the pastor-father of the home (or the mother in homes without a father, which was Timothy’s situation) is made adequate to help his or her family. Paul tells Timothy, therefore, to "preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season" (4:2).

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth… (4: 3-4).

When culture rushes down on your family and the professing church is trying to imitate the world itself, how will your family keep from being swept away in its path? Only through the Word of God! Family worship, on a daily basis, is your hope that they will stand like steel piers against the prevailing tide.

When speaking in Basel, Switzerland years ago I saw a ferry which crossed the swift Rhone river. It had no engine, but operated by means of its resistance to the current, guided from one side to the other along a taut steel line. Unless we attach those tender hearts of our family members to the steel line of truth, there will be little hope of their withstanding the forces pressing against them.

In India there was a custom of throwing babies into the Ganges river as a sacrifice to the gods. If we are unwilling to do any more than merely take our children to church, we might as well be throwing them into the river of the culture. This is an explanation why many children of Christian parents are so often no different than the world’s. They have been given to the gods by their parents—thrown in with hands of neglect.
WHAT ARE THE BASICS?

There are three aspects of family worship which I find important: singing, the reading of the Word, and prayer, or as one friend puts it Song, Scripture, and Supplication.

Singing. Not every home is musical, but every attempt should be made to incorporate singing into the daily worship experience. We have been concerned that a whole generation of children are growing up without Christian hymnody. Therefore, we teach our children the best hymns of the faith. In fact, I give my children three dollars for every hymn they learn!

We prefer the hymns written by the theologians and pastors of earlier days (Watts, Wesley, Newton, Doddridge, etc.) since the theology is better. The "gospel hall songs" written by the crusade musicians of the 19th century are often trite and less God-exalting, even though we are sometimes romantically attached to them.

I got the idea of paying money for learning hymns from Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century pastor of the London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle.

My grandfather was very fond of Dr. Watt’s hymns, and my grandmother, wishing to get me to learn them, promised me a penny for each one that I should say to her perfectly. I found it an easy and pleasant method of earning money, and learned them so fast that grandmother said she must reduce the price to a halfpenny each, and afterwards to a farthing, if she did not mean to be quite ruined by her extravagance. There is no telling how low the amount per hymn might have sunk, but grandfather said that he was getting overrun with rats, and offered me a shilling a dozen for all I could kill. I found, at the time, that the occupation of rat-catching paid me better than learning hymns, but I know which employment has been the more permanently profitable to me. No matter on what topic I am preaching, I can even now, in the middle of any sermon, quote some verse of a hymn in harmony with the subject. The hymns have remained with me, while those old rats for years have passed away, and the shillings I earned by killing them have been spent long ago.

Reading the Word. Though there are uses for devotional books of various types, they are best as a supplement and not a substitute for the Bible. My preference is to stick with reading the Bible as our main diet during family worship. Occasionally you may wish to add a chapter day by day of a Christian biography, while still giving the Bible the center stage. Use other helps at bedtime, or as a supplement, if helpful, but drink the "pure milk of the Word" during family worship. We read a chapter each day and always complete the book we begin.

You will find the Bible engaging enough on its own, and often a launching place for discussion about many things. For instance, what better place can you find to learn about sexuality than from Scripture? Don’t be afraid of the less than perfect characters you will meet in the Bible. They are included for our instruction. Use the examples, good and bad, to talk about those forgotten virtues of integrity, honesty, faithfulness, etc. Bring out the nature of sin and the beauties of the gospel, heaven and hell.

When the children are young, or the family is new to the faith, go over and over the story portions of the Bible. Begin with Mark, and then read the other gospels, Genesis, Exodus, the two Samuels, Kings and Chronicles, Ruth, Esther, Acts, etc. This will give them the history of the Bible as a great redemption drama. Later they can handle the teaching portions better.

Though the morning is by far the best time for family worship, you may not find it workable. You may wish to take the mealtime most attended by all your family. Have the Bible set beside the father’s place as part of the table setting. Then, after the meal, but before any dishes are moved off the table, worship together. Do it faithfully, even when someone must be absent.

Family prayers. Our children are used to seeing prayers answered. Why? Because we pray very specifically. When we see the answer come in, we make something of it.

I prefer to talk with the family about some of our needs and then assign each of us something to pray about. I usually accompany this with an encouragement that God has been answering our prayers and that we all should pray silently while another is wording our request. There is nothing more beautiful than the sincere request of children.

Keeping this time fresh will be your hardest task. Sometimes you may wish to put requests into a basket and let each person draw one out. Seek ways to make this time better. When the children are young, however, family worship should not be long and tedious for them. They will learn best by degrees.
JUDGMENT DAY

Puritan Richard Mather (1596-1669), grandfather of Increase, and great grandfather of Cotton Mather, once imagined children on judgment day, speaking to their parents. His words will serve as a final sober warning that we must be more diligent to care for the souls of our children:

All this that we here suffer is through you. You should have taught us the things of God, and did not. You should have restrained us from sin and corrected us, and you did not. You were the means of our original corruption and guiltiness, and yet you never showed any competent care that we might be delivered from it. Woe unto us that we had such carnal and careless parents; and woe unto you that had no more compassion and pity to prevent the everlasting misery of your own children.


Copyright © 2000 Jim Elliff
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Is Your Devotion Like that of the Old Paths?

Family Scripture Memorizing

Bible Passages for Memorizing
by Ruth Beechick

A basic family tradition is memorizing Scripture. Your family can do this together—easily. Choose a Bible passage such as the Twenty-Third Psalm, and choose a time. Family devotions are an ideal setting for this tradition. Otherwise, choose breakfast or another meal that you share together. Even car time will work for some families with a regular driving schedule.

The Best Memory Method

To begin, you all simply recite the psalm together. Those who read may use their Bibles. Children who do not read follow as best they can, listening or saying some parts as they trail along behind. That is all for day one. The following days are similar. The goal is that in three months or so, all who are old enough will know the psalm by heart. Even the very youngest children gain in many ways, whether or not they actually memorize.

This method of memorizing is called the “whole method.” When you learn a passage this way, you end up able to recite smoothly through it all, just as you recite smoothly through the alphabet without stopping to think which letter comes next. You also learn faster with less work by using this whole method. Research documents the results of the whole method: memorizing is more efficient, takes less total time, and produces better memory results.

Most people commonly use the “part method” for memorizing extended passages. This means learning one verse, then adding the next, and so forth. This takes longer, and the result is usually a less smooth recitation, as they sometimes pause to think which verse comes next.

As you recite the psalm each day, the children who read will gradually quit following in their Bibles, or you may need to suggest that they look up from their Bible pages when they can. Occasionally you might check that a child correctly pronounces a word like righteousness. Answer questions the children have about meaning, but it is not necessary to study the psalm while memorizing it. Some books for Sunday school teachers say, “Be sure the children understand the verse before they memorize it.” This is useless advice. When do any of us fully understand a Scripture? Children can just as well memorize first and learn the meaning more fully as they grow older.

Continue reciting daily until you have not just learned a passage, but overlearned it. Then review on a diminishing schedule. For instance, for one or two months recite the passage once a week (instead of the new passage you are starting to learn). Then review once a month. Eventually, once a year will be sufficient. There is no specific rule about this schedule. The length of a passage, the amount of overlearning, and other variables all affect this, so adjust as you see a need for more review or less. The principle of a diminishing need for review will continue to apply.

If your family learns three or four passages a year—or even just two—these add up to considerable Scripture for your children to carry in their hearts wherever life may take them—to legislative halls or to enemy prison camps, to their future families or to fellow workers. After some passages of six or fewer verses, your family may feel brave enough to tackle a longer passage, perhaps a full chapter.

Bible Passages for Memorizing

Make your own selections or choose some from this list. You can shorten most of these or, in some cases, extend to make a longer portion. (My son Allen, who learned all these as a child and many whole books as a teen, says Psalm 34 is his favorite. At age 8 he recited Isaiah 53 with its big words, and said, “I like the words of the Bible; they sound so good.”)

Psalms 1, 8, 19, 23, 24, 34, 100

Exodus 20:1-17, Ten Commandments

Joshua 1:7-9, meditate on the book

Proverbs 8:22-31, wisdom speaks (Christ himself)

Proverbs 15:1-6, soft answer

Isaiah 53:1-6 (or the whole chapter), Man of sorrows

Matthew 5:3-12, Beatitudes

Matthew 5:19-24, treasures in Heaven

Luke 2:1-7 (or to 16 or 20), Christmas story

John 1:1-14, the Word became flesh

John 3:14-18, God so loved the world

John 14:1-4 (or to 14), mansions in the Father’s house

Romans 1:14-15 (or to 20 or farther), not ashamed of the Gospel

I Corinthians 13, love

Ephesians 2:8-10, saved by grace

Philippians 4:4-8, rejoice

James 1:22-25, doers of the Word

Created To Worship-Ted Tripp

Created to Worship
by Tedd and Margy Tripp

Human beings are worshipers. It follows then, that children are worshipers. We can almost hear someone say, “Not my children, Tedd and Margy, they fall asleep in church every week.”

But nonetheless, your children are worshipers. They have been created in the image of God. The world in which they live is designed to display the glory of God, and children—indeed, all human beings—are uniquely designed for worship. Like explorers driven to find distant shores, your sons and daughters go off every day in search of excitement, seeking an answer to the question, “Who or what is worth worshiping?”

The fact that human beings are hard-wired for worship is a unique aspect of our creation. It is the reason we love to hear a symphony or watch a juggler or marvel at an athletic feat. We love to be dazzled. It is the reason we watch sports on TV. Do you know that Antarctic penguins hold no diving competitions? They perform marvelous feats without color commentary or slow-motion replays. A brown bear grabs a salmon from the Columbia River, by any account an amazing feat of timing and coordination, and yet none of his fellow bears line the shore to applaud. Human beings do this sort of thing because human beings are uniquely designed for worship. Your kids love to be entranced by something amazing because they are instinctively worshippers.

Now, what happens when children who are designed for worship fail to worship the God in whose image they have been made? These children do not cease to be worshippers; they simply worship and serve something else. The apostle Paul speaks to this in Romans 1:25: “[ They] exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (NKJV).

This is what your children do; it is what all humanity does. If your children do not worship and serve God, they substitute something for God, worshipping and serving something in the creation instead. They manufacture an idol—a substitute for God.

These idols your children find are not small statues of wood or gold; they are much more subtle. Leaving a Chinese restaurant recently with two young granddaughters, I felt a tug on my coat. “Grandpa,” one asked, pointing to a large statue of Buddha in the corner, “who’s that fat man?” The question provided a wonderful opportunity to speak to the girls about idols.

The human heart creates so many idols:

Pride and performance. Some children will lay all at the altar of performance. They are driven. The joys of performance and the praises that attend excellence stimulate and impel them.

Power and influence. Other children exhibit a lust to control the people in their world. These are the organizers and arrangers. If the game is playing school, they will always be the teachers.

Pleasure and sensuality. You may have a thrill-seeker in your family. This is the child who constantly seeks the rush of exciting, heart-throbbing, and adrenalin-pumping experiences. He finds the joys of ordinary living boring.

Possessions. Some kids crave stuff. They pore through the catalogs that enter your home. They collect stuff; they polish stuff. When they leave the house, they want assurance that no one will touch their stuff while they are gone.

We could add to the list. People are endlessly creative when it comes to finding substitutes for God. Other idols include the fear of man, the desire for approval, the longing for friendship, or simply the consuming desire to be someone or have something that elicits the response “Cool!”

All of this brings me to my point: The most important job you have as a parent is to show the glory of God to your children, who are compulsively worshippers. Your kids are hard-wired for worship, but in their fallen state, they instinctively worship and serve created things rather than God. Psalm 145 talks about this when it says,

I will extol You, my God, O King; And I will bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, And I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:1-4, NKJV)

Your job is to be one generation commending the glory and excellence of God to the next generation. (See also Psalm 78:1-7.)

Help your children see that we find our greatest joys in the nearness of God rather than in fulfilling our appetites. “There are many who say, ‘Who will show us any good?’ LORD, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us. You have put gladness in my heart, More than in the season that their grain and wine increased” (Psalm 4:6-7, NKJV).

Show your thrill seekers that the lasting joys and pleasures that people crave are found in knowing God. “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11, NKJV).

Illustrate for them that the greatest deliverance from adversity is not removal from difficulty (Psalm 27:1-3), but enjoying the beauty of the Lord. “One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4, NKJV).

Other Psalms to which you may turn to underscore the joys and delights of being entranced by God are Psalm 36:5-9, 63:1-5, 73:25-26, 81:10-16, and 96:1-6.

Why is this so important?

1. Your kids do not merely exist amidst the facts and circumstances of their lives. They interpret everything that happens around them, and their interpretation determines how they respond. The key to correctly interpreting life is the being and glories of the God for whom they are made. If they are worshiping and serving idols, they will never accurately interpret the circumstances of life.

2. Since you love your kids and desire their happiness, you will always be tempted to feed their idols. Many parents do just that. They fill their children’s lives with stuff and take delight in their children’s delight in possessions. Yet they cling to the hope that someday their children will see that life is not found in possessions, but in knowing God. Resist the temptation to polish your children’s idols.

3. The Christian life begins with glory. “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6, NKJV). The Christian life continues and grows as we behold God’s glory. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18, NKJV).

Perhaps the best thing you can do for your children is to go before God, behold His glory, and then move toward them with the encouragement that they have been created for a great and glorious God who longs to bring them abundant life.

Tedd Tripp is the senior pastor of Grace Fellowship Church, Hazleton, Pennsylvania. He and Margy have been married since 1968, and they have three adult children and six grandchildren. Tedd holds a B.A. in History from Geneva College, M.Div. from Philadelphia Theological Seminary, and D.Min. with an emphasis in Pastoral Counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary. He is the author of the popular childrearing book Shepherding a Child’s Heart (Shepherd Press, 1995).

Sing The Word!

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What makes SING THE WORD valuable to you?

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Roger Nye, bassoon
New York Philharmonic Orchestra

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Family Worship. Why?

Why should a family worship together? From CrossTV

Leonard Ravenhill-Training Children

How wonderful to be able to hear these words from Leonard Ravenhill. He is so right! Where's family worship these days in 'Christian' homes? Are we training our children in godliness or in worldliness? Do we spend more time watching movies together than studying scripture together? Oh may we repent of our lazy ways and let's glorify the Lord as a family!